Yes. Beating them would negate their dual (triple?) advantage of being both ahead on points and having a game in hand both overall and at home. It also gives us a win in the toughest category of the schedule chart above.
2017 Projecting By The Numbers and Chasing A Narrative
- Thread starter mgarbowski
- Start date
the best thing about MLS is that you just have to have a seat at the table come playoff time and it's a literal coin flip.
Aaaaaaand some of us think that's maybe the *worst* thing about MLS.
Oops. Did I say that out loud?
- Last year NYC played 23rd game in late July, had 36 points, and were in First Place in the East with 1.57 PPG and a projected 53-54 point finish. Catching the West leaders for SS was possible but highly unlikely (and didn't happen). The biggest concern was whether Toronto could catch up at 7 points back but 3 games in hand and most of them at home. Instead TFC slipped after it made up almost all the ground, and RB caught up by not losing again the rest of the season. NYC had a disproportionate 4 of its remaining 11 games against the West. After a weird season with very imbalanced H/A stretches it evened out and NYC faced 5H/6A the rest of the way. NYCFC finished at 54 points.
- This year NYC reached Game 23 a week later, has 4 more points and projects to 59-60, but sits in Third Place in the East. Atlanta is behind with one game in hand and most of at home. The West leaders can theoretically catch us and the East leaders but it seems unlikely. NYC has a disproportionate 5 of its remaining 11 games against the West, and again 5H/6A the rest of the way.
- The playoff line in the West is higher than the East, but the East's 5th place team is closer to the top of the West than to the 6th place West team.
- Catching Toronto or Chicago will be quite tough, and we will need help. Both have 6 home games to NYC's 5, and Chicago has one extra game overall. If they win that, they are as far ahead of NYC as Toronto is. Neither has lost at home. Maybe they are due for a loss, or maybe they just won't lose at home (we play Chicago in Chicago). In the 3 previous seasons only 2016 Colorado finished undefeated at home.
- Toronto is 4 points ahead of NYC and has 4 more road draws.
- Same matrix as last week. A Home game is tough if against a team ranked 1-3 in its conference. Away is tough if against 1-6:
- Atlanta still has all the Home games. Toronto has no tough Home games. RB has by far the most tough games. NYC is essentially in the middle.
- That 4-0 loss to Toronto killed the Goal Differential. Looking ahead to tie-breakers, if we tie either Toronto or Chicago, we will probably have more wins overall, but if not and it goes to the second breaker, NYC is 9 behind on GD. Pigeons are also 5 ahead of RB and 3 behind Atlanta (thanks Loons).
If there is one game left that we go 100% medieval on a team, it's gotta be tomorrow night. There is zero reason why we should drop any points and every reason why we should run the score up. Fck it - we fail to perform if we don't walk away adding +4 to our GD.
There's one very big reason why not and his name is Yangel. There's also another reason name's Maxim. I won't even touch our FB situation.
Huh? Yangel is playing. We can still be ruthless on offense without him picking up a card. And our FBs have contributed to a lot of goals.
I meant maxi. I'm getting all these red card suspensions confused when they come at us every week.
The key is for Ring and White to avoid any yellow cards since they can get a reduction if they stay clean in this game, but will be suspended if they draw a card. We also need Yangel to stay clean, although he's got 4 games to go for a reduction.
Naw, we'll go 8-0 in New Jersey.
I mean, we're going for the season sweep, we may as well do it in style.
I figure if Ring gets the reduction, he probably will still have 1 more suspension by the end of the year, with 1 more on top of that an outside risk -- unlikely but possible. If he cards this game, that would be a suspension plus he the same likelihood of 1 more likely and a second unlikely.
If White gets the reduction he also probably gets one suspension by year end. If he cards now, he could easily again get another by year end, but it's maybe a little less likely than Ring.
You could be right. There will be 10 games left after LA, but only 9 count for yellow card accumulation since yellows in the last game do not carry over to the playoffs.
For either Ring or White, if he doesn't card tomorrow, he'd need 2 yellows for a suspension and 5 for an additional suspension. If he does card tomorrow, he'd get that suspension, and another 3 would get him the additional suspension.
Right now, Ring has 7 yellows in 22 games, or about 1 every 3 games, so he would project to 3 cards over the balance of the season. The good news is that he is only 2 cards in his last 9 after getting 5 in his first 13. So, maybe he is getting a little smarter about how to avoid trouble and can stay clean for the duration - especially if he gets through tomorrow.
Regarding White, he's gotten 4 yellow cards in 18 appearances (16 starts), so give him 1 every 4 games. And, like Ring, his rate has been slowing, with only 1 in his last 9. If he can get through this game, I like his chances to finish the season without a suspension.
Looking at Maxi, he will need 3 in the last 9 games to get a second sit down. He had 5 in his first 19, so not out of the question, but pretty unlikely.
The scary one is The Captain. Villa has 4 yellows on the season (21 starts), but one of those was knocked off for accumulation purposes. So, he would be suspended with 2 more cards in the next 10 games. That's right about the rate at which he's been pulling them down. Of course, last year he sat out a game for yellow card accumulation, and we thrashed Colorado 5-1, so who knows?
(going to copy this over to the yellow card thread as well.)
Villa's cards irk the shit out of me. No forward needs to draw a card - talking back shouldn't happen and as a forward there isn't the need to recklessly challenge as Mids/Def are covering. I'd like to think Villa has taken cards because he knows he can, but now that he's in danger he'll opt for less foolhardy actions.
Last year Villa earned the 5th in the 4-1 loss to RB in Harrison, IIRC by doing something really direct and obtuse like refusing to move to let RB take a free kick. There was speculation he did it on purpose to get the suspension out of the way against Colorado at home. Looking at our remaining schedule I would judge the best options are the Revs at home, which is the next game after this, or Houston at home 5 games later. I don't necessarily think he'd do that again (assuming he did it last year -- our club melted down at the end of that game) but if he does want to do it, I would expect to see Villa get a yellow this weekend.
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Except that officially, he is only on 3 cards at the moment. Maybe if he picks up a 4th soon, he would pull the trigger to miss Houston. Personally, I don't think last year was intentional. The captain's only weakness is his temper, and that nightmare in Harrison was enough to trigger the worst from anyone.
I think it was intentionally unintentional. That one. Not all of them.
He gets most yellows for the same reason he scored that second goal last week and the same reason wolves and jungle cats don't make good pets. I don't think you can fully separate it.
It's the same reason you live with Vidal getting 2-3 reds per season. When your competitive engine runs at redline rpms all the time, youre going to blow some gaskets.
There's one game left to finish this week due to the rain delay in DC, but neither team (DC and RSL) are of much interest so I'm putting this up now.
- Hello Second Place. It’s been a while since we've seen you. I’m exactly not sure when, but it was probably the end of 2016. I don't think we started strong enough to have been in second even by accident near the start of the season.
- In fairness, NYC and Chicago are as tied as 2 teams can be when they have not played the game amount of games. I suppose NYC and Chicago could have the same number of points, but then the Fire would have a clear PPG advantage with the game in hand. As it stands, NYC is up 2 points, and 0.01 ahead on PPG. Chicago has a game in hand, and the one game remaining between the 2 teams is in Chicago.
- Both teams control their destiny. If NYC wins out, including the game in Chicago, the Fire cannot catch them. If Chicago wins out, NYC cannot catch them.
- Meanwhile, Toronto just keep chugging along. Four games ago, Toronto and the Fire both had 3 losses, by far the lowest in the league. Since then the Fire have lost 3 of 4 while Toronto is still sitting on 3 for the year. They lost once in their first 14 games. Then lost 2 of 4. And since have gone 6 games without a loss. They don’t win more than anyone. They are tied with NYC in wins. Chicago and RB are each one win behind with a game in hand. But TFC has only 3 losses and the next lowest (Chicago) has double that. When Toronto does not win it has 3 losses against 8 draws while NYC has 7 losses against 4 draws. Toronto had a weak start to the season, which easy t forget at the point. They only won 1 of their first 6 games. But they also only lost once. Four draws in the first six — two of those at home — was a poor start. But those four draws also represent the difference between 1st and 2nd place right now.
- Last year NYC won 6 road games and had the most Away wins and points in the league. The fifth road win came after 8 games, including a stretch of 4 wins out of 5. 2016 NYC only won 2 of the last 7 Away games. This year it took 12 games to reach 5 wins, but they have come more regularly. With 6 left, it is reasonable to hope for 3 more wins. 2 more is probably the most likely, but 3 is a good hope, with the weakest opponents being Colorado, Montreal and New England (which is not to concede RB and Chicago, either of which would be even more valuable. But 3 more road wins makes 7 more wins very possible. Even 8 becomes thinkable with 3 Away wins. OTOH, getting just 1 more Away win caps the team at 5 or 6 more wins, which is still on track for the neighborhood of 60 points, but probably comfortably far from First Place and maybe even from Second.
- NYC 2017 is now 6 points ahead of NYC 2016.
- A few more schedule notes. The West is all askew right now with Dallas in 4th place despite having the highest PPG. At the same time their PPG puts them tied for Fifth Place in the East. Atlanta had one game in hand going into this week. They were inactive this week, and will be again next week due to their stadium delay, leaving them will 3 games in hand. But a win at home by NYC next week creates an 11-point gap. Atlanta has a tough gap to make up even with all their home games, and their 8 games in 24 days should tire them out. NYC can be in a similar position with RB next week, but that requires 2 results in the coming week, and I try not to count on getting help. But it would be nice if after next week we know the game in Harrison is important only for pride, a season sweep, and the all-time record, while the only team that can threaten NYC from behind -- barring a loss of form -- is Chicago.
Toronto does not have an easy schedule to play out. A game against Chicago, RB, and three against Montreal (who always seems to get up for their Canadian neighbor), and games at LA and Atlanta. That's a serious gauntlet to run through. They're either coming out of it with the Supporters Shield, and are a pure juggernaut, or more likely we're going to see them come back to earth.
As long as we don't drop any stupid points, we should have a real shot to overtake them.
To be fair, you can say the same thing about our remaining schedule, with games at RB, Montreal, and Chicago. And home games against SKC, Portland, and Houston (who is now playing better on the road).
They have been hot, and will be tough to catch, but being 4 points back with 10 matches to go, I have a moderate amount of confidence in taking first! I'm more concerned with staying out of third place, as I want to avoid the one-off elimination round. I'll be happy with second, as that would essentially give us MLS Cup host provided that no West team goes on some monster tear. In a series with TFC, I would not be too upset about giving up home-field, as we have seen that hosting the opening match can actually be an advantage!
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